Its been about 4 years since I built my first pc (thanks to the help of these forums). The system still runs great but I'm no longer getting the gaming performance I would like to @ 1920x1080. I'm here looking for thoughts and suggestions.

-I would like to crossfire in the future. (Edit: or SLI)-Looking for something that overclocks decently. -Gaming is primary use. -I will be using my 55" SONY as an extended monitor via HDMI. It needs to carry audio! Currently my 4870 does this just fine. Anyone know if the 7870 will work?-I like components that stay cool as I live in AZ

So this is what I'm thinking. I still need to choose a motherboard and some RAM. Also, will my psu sufice or will I need to get another unit?

Also, I don't understand why on earth anyone would spend $200 on a motherboard when that would give you one of the worst price/performance ratios of a component upgrade. A decent Z77 motherboard in the $100-120 range should be more than sufficient unless you really need dual thunderbolt or something exotic.

LOL, I did mean I may go with 2 cards later I'm thinking I will reuse the psu as well now.

As far as the mobo: yeah, $200 is the upper limit. I think Voldenuit was right on price/performance ratio. The Asus P8Z77-V LK looks good to me and has good reviews. Though, I see no problem with spending ~$50 more on a board if it has better cooling or is more future proof.

As far as the gpu: I read somewhere around here that even though the 7950 is a more powerfull gpu its currently suffering from driver issues resulting in jittery gaming performance or something. Here we go: http://techreport.com/news/24136/driver-software-to-be-tweaked-to-reduce-radeon-frame-latencies-in-series-of-updates. I'm not trying to start a fight but once drivers are optimized, how likely is it that the 7950 will outperform the 660ti? Again, I will be playing at 1920x1080. Mostly first person shooters if that means anything (which is why I orignially figured the 660ti was better for the more consistently fluid experience).

And as far as RAM: This is where I'm most clueless. I wouldnt mind spending a little extra on "good" RAM if I'm going to see a justified performance increase.

dederpedy wrote: I'm not trying to start a fight but once drivers are optimized, how likely is it that the 7950 will outperform the 660ti? Again, I will be playing at 1920x1080. Mostly first person shooters if that means anything (which is why I orignially figured the 660ti was better for the more consistently fluid experience).

The 7950 has more memory bandwidth and ROP power than the 660Ti, but my pick is still the 660Ti for the fluidity and nvidia's historical driver performance (this from soneone whose last 3 cards before my current 660 have been AMD cards).

At 1080p, neither card is being taxed on modern games, but equally, neither card is really ideal for a 3x1080p monitor eyefinity/surround setup. So at 1080p, I don't think that the 7950 will be able to pull ahead appreciably, even if AMD were to iron out every kink in their drivers. At least that's my opinion on the matter.

Thx Voldenuit, I think I'm going with the MSI 660 ti. Its a little more expensive than other 660 ti cards at $299.99 but as a satisifed MSI customer, I'm gonna have to show them some love. I especially like how quiet these cards are and they seem to run pretty cool.

I also think I'm going with the Asus P8Z77-V LK mobo.

Next is RAM. As stated earlier, I set my RAM budget to $100, leaving room for 16gb of 1600 mhz RAM or 8 gb of something with a higher speed - if that turned out to be the best 2 routes. As of now, Im leaning towards 2 x 4gb 1600 mhz CORSAIR Vengeance sticks. Unless someone can justify spending an extra $50 to have 16gb or 8gb of RAM with higher frequency.

I have some time to think as i won't be ordering everything until the end of the week.

I would go with 1866 memory...its seems ti give the best mem bandwidth for the price. plus it is not much more then ddr3 1600.2000 or higher just does not give the boost in bandwidth that going from 1600 to 1866 does.

When it comes to Crossfire/SLi, one strong card has much better value than two. If you wan't an upgrade later, you're probably better off just replacing GPUs.

But keep in mind that you can put more than one graphics card in a system without running Crossfire/SLi. I am not sure if you can mix and match AMD and Nvidia cards for this, but if you need more than two monitors running, leaving an older card in your system to run your non-gaming displays is a reasonable option. If you need actual gaming on multiple monitors, consider stepping up to a stronger card like the 680 or 7970.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

vargis14 wrote:I would go with 1866 memory...its seems ti give the best mem bandwidth for the price. plus it is not much more then ddr3 1600.2000 or higher just does not give the boost in bandwidth that going from 1600 to 1866 does.

While I can agree that 1866 can be nabbed on sale for $40 / 8GB kit same as 1600, the largest benefits of going with faster RAM are in the IGP space which in itself is more applicable to AMD APUs. (Reference)If you've got the funds now, and depending on how long your upgrade cycles are, I see no reason not to get a 2x8GB kit now. Seems like every 3 years we see a step up in recommended memory capacity. 8GB is the norm now. You can get 16GB kits for $75 to $70 or even lower depending on sales.

Other than that, I agree with most other comments/recommendations including those to NOT go SLI/Crossfire. Watch for sales if you've got a week or two. It sounds like you're pretty well set with the components you want to buy, now its all about saving money.

**ALSO** The AMD 8xxx series desktop GPUs and Intel Haswell CPUs will be out around June. Keep this in mind. Maybe you could hold off a few more months? Even if you end up going Ivy Bridge and Nvidia, these new product releases are sure to drive prices down on previous-gen stuff.

DPete27 wrote:**ALSO** The AMD 8xxx series desktop GPUs and Intel Haswell CPUs will be out around June. Keep this in mind. Maybe you could hold off a few more months? Even if you end up going Ivy Bridge and Nvidia, these new product releases are sure to drive prices down on previous-gen stuff.

June is 5 months away. Considering that video card prices are at one of the best price/performance ratios since the 4850/4870 days, I have to wonder if it's worth the wait?

Five months is a long time to wait. I mean he's upgrading 3 gens on graphics and the same on the processor. It's going to be a rather big upgrade already. I went from an athlon x3 to an i5 2500 and the difference just in processor alone was mind blowing in video games. I only had a gtx 460 768 meg edition. I blame games like sc2 and the mutliplayer games I was playing at the time.

Ignore the sig it was a gift/swap from my brother, my other system was an i5 2500, gtx 460 768 edition, 8 gigs, and the corsair neutron (transplanted into my current pc).

JustAnEngineer wrote:Have you checked out the Asus P8Z77-V LK from the system guide or the P8Z77-M Pro?

I did and I'm pretty certain the Asus P8Z77-V LK will fit nicely with the cpu and gpu that I also borrowed from the latest editor's choice build. Looks like newegg added an additional 10% discount this morning as well, on top of the existing $10 instant and $15 mir, bringing the price to $110.99. Thinking I'll be ordering one after work.

Looks good. Though, from what I've read, the memory installs at 1333 and I will need to set it to 1866 manually through bios. Does anyone know if there is generally just one setting needed to be changed or will i have to manually enter a bunch of values like timings, voltage, etc?

[/quote]Looks good. Though, from what I've read, the memory installs at 1333 and I will need to set it to 1866 manually through bios. Does anyone know if there is generally just one setting needed to be changed or will i have to manually enter a bunch of values like timings, voltage, etc?[/quote]

Setting up the memory is a breeze. All you have to to is select the X.M.P. memory profile in the bios that will sett all the correct settings for the memory.If asus has it in there bios " i a gigabyte man" you can select 1866 in the bios along with the XMP profile.

I just used the Asus P8Z77-V LK in my new system and I have been very happy with it so far.

I was going to go the 660 TI SLI route but went with a single GTX 680 instead. The 660 starts at around $300, so that would be $600 for two, the 680 starts at around $450. So, a savings of $150 that could be used on other toys.

I have a friend that has the SLI 660 setup and we could not tell a difference between his system and mine during a mini LAN party last week.